Nuance does exist in gun laws, voter fraud

Take doctors, for example. You don’t just go see any person who completed med school no matter your ailment. You pick the doctor right for your situation – a general practitioner, a gynecologist, an oncologist, a podiatrist, etc.

There are choices to be made even when considering products or people who are similar or who fall under the same general description.

You carry groceries in paper or plastic bags.

You drive a Ford or Chevy truck.

You vote Democrat or Republican.

We all know these variations exist. We acknowledge them, sometimes taking great pride in our choices and/or taking shots at those who have made the opposite choice.

So why is it that recognizing variations becomes so absurdly impossible for some when it comes to gun regulations and voter ID laws?

Any regulation proposed on firearms sales – no matter how reasonable or popular – is tabbed a “gun grab” and the person who proposed it labeled a “gun hater.”

There is zero room for nuance or variation.

Take me, for example. I grew up in this state and lived around guns my entire life. I, and most of my friends, carried a BB gun around just about every day for most of my childhood, and I’ve been hunting more times than I’ve wanted to go.

So I’m not a “gun hater.” I don’t mind responsible people owning guns for protection or hunting or sport shooting.

But what I do mind is a verifiably insane person having the ability to stroll into the local gun store, pawn shop or big-box store, buy a handgun on the spot because his mental health history didn’t pop up in the non-expanded background check and walk out to go see a movie.

And because I think that expanded background check should be required, along with ID requirements for ammo and mandates on smart-gun technology that might prevent 3-year-olds from shooting themselves or their siblings with Daddy’s gun, I am a “gun hater.”

And those regulations are labeled “anti-gun regulations.” Which will make them easier for NRA-backed lawmakers to vote them down, because that label – which effectively removed the variation – has enraged the gun owners and silenced those who fall in the middle.

It works the same with voter ID laws.

As an NAACP-led march made its way through Montgomery on Monday, headed from Selma to Washington, D.C., to bring attention to the need to pass Congressional protections for voting rights, we have the same nuance-less arguments taking place.

The Voting Rights Act on 1965, passed following the Selma-to-Montgomery March led by Martin Luther King Jr., has been gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court removed the preclearance requirements that had been in place for certain states where evidence of black voter suppression was obvious.

The justices claimed that preclearance was an outdated notion, since most of the states subject to the requirement were in the South and those states have changed.

They have changed so much that within 24 hours of the Supreme Court’s ruling, five of the nine states, including Alabama, started implementing new ID laws. That included three laws that had already been deemed discriminatory by the Department of Justice.

Supporters of those ID laws will insist that they are necessary to prevent the documented voter fraud that is occurring.

You will not find a more perfect example of ignoring variation.

Of course voting fraud exists. It exists in large numbers. But voter ID laws address none of it.

People simply aren’t going into polling places and pretending to be other people, because that sort of fraud is akin to stealing a penny from the cash drawer every day. It’s not worth the time and effort and risk.

Instead, fraud occurs in bunches with absentee ballots and vote counting – neither of which is prevented by the new ID laws.

But it doesn’t matter. Politicians, who have looked at the number of voters who lack the proper forms of ID and realized their demographics usually mean a vote for the “lib’rul” party, have labeled it all “voting fraud” and proclaimed this to be a fix.

Or to put it in terms everyone can grasp: Our lawmakers have recalled a bunch of Fords because Chevys had a problem.